Some of you may remember this quilt that I made for my first nephew. My step-brother and sister-in-law really loved the quilt, especially the message on the back. So, when they announced that they were expecting again, I knew I had to create something equally as special for this baby!

I started off knowing that I wanted to include the personalized message in this quilt, but I didn't want to use the same design idea. I had a few ideas for the front of the quilt, and I started out with the Sew Kind of Wonderful Urban Chained pattern. Unfortunately, I was working with fat quarters and the prints were set in the wrong direction. Does that happen to anyone else? I swear, no matter which direction the print is facing, it's always the wrong direction for what I'd like to do!

So, I used the cutting instructions for half of the quilt (the longer curves, I believe), and decided to modify the layout to suit my prints. After all, no one wants a sideways antelope on a quilt, right?

I also ran out of background fabric (pearl bracelets in sand), so I tossed in another print. I probably could have found some more pearl bracelets, but I ended up really liking the look of the text print (from the Collage collection)!

Somewhere in the design process I decided that I would quilt words into the background area. That helped to guide the layout a bit.

I used a cream thread and quilted lots and lots and lots of pebbles in the background areas. I played around with the idea of quilting the curved sections or changing up the pebbles, but I think the uniform quilting keeps the quilt from getting too busy. And after some instagram chatter, I left the curves unquilted to soften the piece.

Around the letters I quilted with the light cream thread and then again with a light grey thread. It's a bit hard to see in the photos, but in person it subtly draws the eye to the words.

For the backing I used a piece of the arrow print plus two of the C+S blenders.

So much pebbling! And for you long arm quilters out there, I used the Sew Kind of Wonderful QCR Sidekick Rulers for this project. I really loved working with them, and I find myself grabbing them to quilt curves on lots of other projects as well!

Here is a shot of the words, from the back of the quilt:

I think this project really came together in the end! My step-brother and his family live in Arizona, so I think the colors were a fun nod to that. The prints didn't really scream baby, but still worked well. And they loved the finished quilt, which was the most important part for me!